


Zygon in Belgravia

by merryghoul



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 1920s, Alien Abduction, Community: hc_bingo, F/M, London, Original Character(s), Party, Swimming Pools, Torchwood References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 19:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4234518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/pseuds/merryghoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and River's date is interrupted by a Zygon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Zygon in Belgravia

**Author's Note:**

> HC Bingo: wild card: alien abduction

"We request your presence at the St George's Swimming Pools, Buckingham Palace Road, at eleven o'clock p.m., on Friday, 13th July, 1928," the two printed invitations in River's diary read. "Please wear a bathing suit and bring a bath towel and a bottle."

River had gotten the invitations after she saved a Belgravian socialite from a statue transformed into a Weeping Angel on a solo excursion outside Stormcage. In return, the socialite handed her the two invitations, an invitation for River and the other a guest of her choosing. Of course, River's guest would be her husband.

Back at Stormcage, River asked one of the guards for a telephone. She called the Doctor. "He'd better pick up this time," she said to herself.

 

River tricked the Stormcage guards into thinking Belgravia was a planet instead of a district in the City of Westminster. She teleported into the TARDIS after getting past Stormcage's Tesla binding field.

The Doctor greeted her with open arms. River greeted him with a kiss. "Hello, sweetie." She looked at the Doctor's head. He was wearing a straw boater with a red ribbon around it. She recoiled in shock before putting a look of disdain on her face. "What in tarnation do you have on your head?"

"It's a boater. I wear boaters now. Boaters are cool."

"You look ridiculous in that hat and you know it."

"Can I keep the hat, River? Please?"

River sighed. "Oh, all right. You can keep the hat."

The Doctor danced around in his red one-piece swimsuit. He ran back to the console and pressed buttons and moved switches. "Right. Belgravia, swimming pools, July 1928. River and I are going on a date." He grinned.

 

When River and the Doctor arrived at St George's Swimming Pools, the first thing River did was to take the Doctor's boater hat off of his head. She flung it in the air, aimed her blaster at it, and destroyed it.

"I liked that boater." The Doctor frowned.

"Do you have your towel and a bottle?" River grabbed her cognac and adjusted her towel on her shoulder.

"Oh." The Doctor ran back in the TARDIS. He came back out with a red towel and a blackcurrant drink. River gave him a confused look.

"What?" The Doctor raised the blackcurrant drink. "It tastes like jelly babies."

 

The Doctor and River put their bottles where a grouping of other bottles were. Then they surveyed the scene. There was a band playing the current jazz hits. Some guests were swaying to the jazz, but a lot of them were standing nervously around the pool. The only person in the pool was a woman with black hair wading in a shallower end of the pool.

"Something's happening at this party," the Doctor said. Something that isn't right." The Doctor dipped one of his toes in the pool. "There's nothing wrong with the water. It's warm. It's wet, just like water should be."

"There's something wrong with that woman."

"That is, if that woman is a woman." The Doctor handed his towel to River. "I'm going in."

The Doctor waded to the woman in the pool. 

"I don't know why no one wants to swim with me," the woman said. She had an Australian accent.

"I don't know why no one wants to swim with you, either. I'm the Doctor, the only other person in this pool with you. I'd invite my wife, but she's sensitive to certain types of water."

"The water's fine. Your wife should join us."

"No, no, not yet. The water's too hot for her."

"Let's dance in the water. That'll prove the water's fine."

The woman grabbed the Doctor's hands and started bobbing in and out of the water.

"Ow ow ow ow ow, enough with the stingy things. They hurt."

The woman in the water turned into a Zygon. The people attending the Bath and Bottle Party gasped.

River took out her blaster and shot the Zygon dead. The Zygon floated on its back in the water.

The Doctor stepped out of the water and dried himself with River's towel. "Dead Zygon in the water. Not good."

"You get the Zygon back to the TARDIS. I'll look for the pod the girl's in."

"Black hair, Australian accent."

"I know, love." River gave the Doctor a peck on his lips. She gave him her towel. He grabbed his psychic paper before she took his towel. "Now go." She ran into a door leading somewhere else into the baths.

The Doctor opened his psychic paper. "I'm the Doctor. Operative of Torchwood. Outside the government, beyond the police and all that. I specialise in alien threats like this Zygon floating in your pool. No one jump in the pool until I take the Zygon corpse out. And forget what you've seen, because I don't have that drug that makes you forget the traumatic things."

 

River found the Zygon's ship, as well as the body-print machine the Zygon was using, in Belgrave Square. To River's relief, the Doctor's towel had another, ordinary towel inside of it. River freed the woman from the Zygon's body-print machine and wrapped the woman up with the spare towel. River took the woman to the TARDIS. 

River and the woman arrived at the TARDIS at the same time the Doctor was dragging the Zygon corpse towards the TARDIS. 

After the Zygon corpse was in the TARDIS, River led the woman into the console room. "I'm sorry, but I never caught your name. I had to get you out of that body-print machine or you might've not had a lot of time to live."

"The Right Honourable Frances Wright." Frances extended her hand to River. "Baroness of Framlingham. I inherited the title when my father died. He's English."

"River Song." River shook her hand. "My husband is the Doctor, the man dragging that Zygon corpse somewhere in our TARDIS. However did that Zygon capture you?"

"I was on a treasure hunt. I was looking for the Prime Minister's pipe with some of my friends. The Zygon stung me in the back and knocked me out. I woke up feeling weak in the Zygon's chamber-thing."

"Is someone missing you right now? I assume it's not the Prime Minister."

"My aunt. She lives here in Belgravia. She's my caretaker while I'm here in London."

"We should get you home."

"What about your husband?"

River headed towards the console. "What about him? He'll be fine unless that Zygon suddenly comes back to life. Then I'll be worried about him. So, where do you live?"

 

Frances' aunt met Frances, the Doctor, and River in her nightgown in her parlour. Her frown seemed permanently attached to her face. 

Frances' aunt squinted at the Doctor's psychic paper. "You're Torchwood?"

The Doctor nodded. "Outside the government--"

"I thought that organization folded in 1924. I remember reading about it in _The Times._ "

"Oh, Miss Song and I are independent Torchwood contractors. Not affliated to Torchwood India at all. We do a lot of undercover work. We're making sure these parties are free from squiggly things."

"Your badge says that you're Doctor and Mrs. Song. I thought you two were married." 

The Doctor looked at River. She gave him a mischievous grin.

"Oh, we are," the Doctor said to Frances' aunt. "I should check my cards for typos."

"Thank you for finding Frances. I was worried that she'd run off with one of those people she's been going on these 'treasure hunts' and eloped for good."

"Oh, sure. It's a speciality of ours," the Doctor said.

"Do you want me to arrange any transportation for the two of you?"

"Oh, no. We have our own transportation. We don't need a car. Come on, River. We've got to be going."

River and the Doctor left Frances' aunt's house. River took the address from the Doctor once the two of them were outside. 

"I don't think we should go back to the party, my love," River said. "How about St Kilda in Melbourne? I've been there once."

"When?"

"I was only there for a few hours before I returned to Stormcage. I went to Luna Park and rode a few rides."

"Without me?" The Doctor pouted.

"I tried to contact you, but apparently you were busy at the time. Really, Doctor, you should pick up your phone more often. But I still do want to go to Luna Park with you, and you're free right now, so..."

The Doctor spun around. "Okay. St Kilda, Melbourne, 1928. River and I are going on another date, and I need a pair of pants."


End file.
